rescuers right now going house to house. they are still freeing people who've been trapped for nearly two days. and very soon now we'll be bringing you in new video of president obama's dramatic helicopter tour of the devastation along the jersey shore. with the new jersey republican governor chris christie right at his side. i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room." >>> there have been many, many major new developments all throughout the day. we want to bring you the latest developments right now. and we're going to begin with the big picture. the storm that started as hurricane sandy now being blamed for a total of 118 deaths. 68 of them in the caribbean and now 50 of them in the united states. the state with the highest death toll, new york state. 26 people in new york state have died. new york city struggling to try to get back to normal. as you see here, subway stations in lower manhattan, they are still totally flooded. they need to be drained. this is a dangerous situation developing. further upbound there is